Since 2011, France Has Faced a Profession With the Highest Suicide Rate: Farmers Who Feed the Country

There are jobs where people dread work-related accidents, occupational illnesses, and the wear and tear on the body. There is another, less visible one, where the danger comes from within: the risk of cracking, alone, far from any help, with no one noticing in time. For more than a decade, a public health agency has kept a careful eye on a profession that is nonetheless associated with nature, wide open spaces, and the pride of feeding fellow citizens. We will unpack this paradox, because it says a lot about what is at stake behind what lands on our plates.

A figure France has been monitoring for more than ten years

Since 2011, Santé publique France maintains a meticulous registry on a phenomenon that, elsewhere, would likely fall into the blind spot of public policy. This register concerns operating farmers, and it reveals a reality that few French people truly grasp: these men and women who plow, harvest, and raise livestock have a suicide risk 12.6% higher than the general population. It is not a one-off anomaly tied to a bad year, but a long-term trend, sufficiently marked to justify ongoing epidemiological surveillance.

The data, broken down by sex and age, paint an even clearer picture. In 2010, the excess mortality by suicide among male farmers reached 20% compared with the rest of the population, versus 50% among women, though the latter figure remains statistically fragile due to the small number of cases. Even more troubling, the age groups most affected are not the young farmers facing immediate financial hardship, but older generations: the 45–54 and especially the 55–64 brackets, in which excess mortality climbed to as high as 64% in 2009. An age at which one might think farming has stabilized, yet the weight of the years eventually takes its toll.

Why those who feed France crack in silence

Not all agricultural sectors are affected equally. The breeders appear to be the most exposed, and among them, those working in dairy cattle farming and beef cattle farming show particularly high suicide mortality rates. A Senate report published in 2021 clarifies these gaps with chilling figures: +56% for dairy cattle breeders and a staggering +127% for beef cattle breeders, compared with the general population. Behind these percentages lies a concrete reality: a vocation with no weekends, no real vacations, where the animal never stops demanding care, morning and night, every day of the year.

The geographic spread of the phenomenon also sheds light. Between 2007 and 2011, the regions Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Brittany and Hauts-de-France recorded more deaths by suicide among farmers than the Grand Est region. These are lands where farming sits at the heart of the economy, with its own set of economic constraints and social isolation. Another detail far from trivial: hanging remains, for both sexes, the most common method. A choice that often reflects direct access to means present on the farm, and a resolve leaving little room for external intervention.

Measures exist, but distress persists

In response to this reality, the Agricultural Social Mutuality has not stood by idly. In 2014, the CCMSA launched Agri’écoute, a telephone listening service dedicated to agricultural professionals going through a period of psychological distress. The idea was simple: offer an accessible, discreet space for dialogue, away from the eyes of neighbors or family, in an environment where asking for help can still be seen as a sign of weakness.

Yet, raw figures continue to be striking. In 2016, the MSA recorded 529 farmers who ended their lives, a total that experts view as widely underestimated, since agricultural suicide is often masked under other causes of death in official statistics. More recent work confirms that farmers aged 15 to 64 still carry a risk about 46% higher than that of other socio-professional categories. In other words, despite the efforts, the gap has not closed in a dramatic fashion.

What this tracking reveals about the state of the agricultural world

Autumn—the season of harvest reviews and the winter plowing preparations—reminds us each year how the agricultural calendar imposes its rhythm without leaving much room for a breather. This epidemiological tracking, pursued relentlessly since 2011, highlights a sector caught between unstable incomes, crushing workloads, and geographic isolation that complicates access to nearby psychological support. The excess mortality by suicide is therefore not an isolated statistical accident, but the visible symptom of an economic and social model that pushes some farmers to the limit of their moral resources.

What these data reveal is also a late acknowledgment of a problem that has long been silenced. By precisely detailing who is affected, at what age, in which sector, and in which region, the authorities finally have tools to target their actions rather than scattering resources over the entire, diverse sector.

Behind every product that lands in our baskets is a farm, a family, sometimes a silent distress that statistics eventually catch up with. This monitoring, cold as it may be in its rows of numbers, recalls a fundamental truth too often forgotten: feeding a country comes at a human cost, and perhaps it is time to question how society values, or fails to value, those who carry this daily burden.